“Transformation Text on Mahāmaudgalyāyana Searching for his Mother in the Netherworld,” one scroll 大目乾連冥間救母變文一卷 (head title). “Transformation Text on Mahāmaudgalyāyana,” one scroll 大目犍連變文一卷 (title at end). Abbreviated version used in collation of T714–744. Notation at beginning just below title: “After two or three lines of each gāthā, we abridge with the words ‘and so on and so forth.’” 其偈子每[#10]三兩句後云云是. Has indentifying formula for pien-wen. Light beige paper, coarse and thick. Fairly rapid hand but neatly written in ruled columns; few additions, no erasures or corrections. The copyist seems to have been working from a well-established written text relatively far removed from its oral predecessor. Once he forgets the importance vestige of oral performance, “the place where…” (at T725.9) and has to add it later. He nearly omits it again at T737.3.
(VM)